


Four Ways that Shepard Wakes Up

by bethfury



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-03
Updated: 2012-04-03
Packaged: 2017-11-03 00:02:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/374833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bethfury/pseuds/bethfury
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four ways that Shepard wakes up, three happy endings, two different Normandys, and one person waiting for her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Ways that Shepard Wakes Up

**Author's Note:**

> ME2 and ME3 spoilers, mention of a post ME3 world

**_ I.  On the Normandy SR-1 _ **   
  
Shepard sleeps with her whole body. Legs kick, arms push blankets off and pull them back on, her eyes flutter softly with dreams. Kaidan watches as she opens her frame wide, stretching diagonally across the small bed before curling back tightly, sheets tangled around her frame.   
  
She talks softly to herself, and Kaidan is able to only pick out every other word, sentences running together like a slumber-driven riddle. He falls asleep with her heavy and warm on his chest, her lips running through silent orders from a long-forgotten battle. He wakes up with her precariously dangling from the side of the bed, her legs shaking the mattress with every jolt of movement.    
  
With the Council sending them on a wild geth-chase, they take the opportunity to learn the relationship lessons that neither one had gotten on their quest from private to officer to galactic savior.    
  
How to negotiate sides of the bed and to share blankets when one person is constantly warm and the other is constantly cold. How soon after waking up someone prefers to brush their teeth and the proper way to wake someone from a bad dream.   
  
She only says his name firmly, hand rested on a tense shoulder before he snaps awake, sweaty and remembering his first night at Brain Camp.    
  
Shepard proves to be more difficult for him to learn, her muscles primed to jump awake at Joker’s call. He realizes quickly that she probably hasn’t slept more than 3 hours at a time since she entered basic training and trying to shake a thrashing soldier will probably lead to a black eye.      
  
He learns the last lesson the hard way, her small fist connecting squarely against his cheek and Dr. Chakwas’ head shake as he explains why he needs the medigel.    
  
But it all gets easier.   
  
A brush of her bangs from her face.    
  
A glass of water waiting when she finally calms.    
  
A soft voice in her ear, “I’m here.”   
  
He takes her hand and places it to his heart, reminding her body of the steady rhythm and reminding himself that her panic will be over.    
  
And the same question every time.   
  
“Did you sleep well?” he would ask, opening his arms to her.   
  
She’d relax against him, “When you’re here, I always do.”   
  
**_ II.  In a Cerberus Space Station _ **   
  
She is empty, the explosion of the Normandy repeated and repeated in her bones, echoing screams against her ribs.   
  
Her neurons fire on and off as old tissue becomes new, as death becomes life. Memories shatter and rebuild, shifting and fitting back into corners of her mind.   
  
Shepard is empty and she knows that this isn’t real. Pieces of her have been sliced off and spread through the shimmering boundary where atmosphere and space meet. Her mind runs through sterile recollections of lessons and classrooms, retraining muscles to fight and reminding her for what she fights.   
  
Voices hit her ears and fail to connect to meaning, light dances on the outside of her eyes bright and harsh. She waits for the familiar rush of adrenaline, the slight tingle of her barrier rippling around her. But nothing comes but the sinking sensation that she is being lost over and over again and nobody can find her.    
  
She resigns herself to the cold metal table beneath her and the sterile white crypt that now contains her former life.   
  
“Kaidan?” she tries to ask, finally reaching up a hand.   
  
When her eyes finally blink open, for a moment, she holds onto the hope that he’ll be there.   
  
The dark-haired figure seems to frown, “Increase the dosage, she’s coming to again.”   
  
**_ III.  In London _ **   
  
When she had first been brought back, Miranda had explained that everything would feel the same as it once did. That she wasn’t different, they hadn’t changed her, and if she fell, it would hurt.   
  
“Pain makes you human,” she explained, “It lets you know your limits.”    
  
Shepard finished her thought, “It lets me know that I’m not actually dead.”   
  
“Wake up! Shepard, baby, you have to wake up!” his voice is screaming in her head when she finally forces her eyes to open.    
  
Her mind takes a brief inventory of the situation: in London, trapped beneath something heavy, completely alone, barely able to breathe.    
  
She gives herself a moment to be angry that she was alive. Every part of her body is raging at her steady heartbeat, and her nerves vibrate with sharp digging pain that forces her to convulse.   
  
As things start to blacken again, Shepard can only think to herself, “I’m not ready. I have someone waiting for me.”   
  
A lifetime passes underwater with muffled noise and blurred sight surrounding her as she wakes again. Another moment stolen to be angry with herself and her new inability to stay awake.   
  
“Shepard, you are the only person who would be angry at themselves to not stay conscious during a major trauma,” Liara’s voice laughed softly as everything faded again.   
  
She wakes again when the first piece of debris is lifted and Kaidan’s voice is yelling in the distance.    
  
“Rogers and Francis, grab this side,” he orders a set of the blurry figures to Shepard’s side, “We need to get this off of her ASAP!”   
  
The group mobilizes around her and Shepard tries to imagine a heroic moment where she’s able to push herself free. “Shepard, I don’t know if you can hear me, but don’t you dare try to help,” Kaidan yells, and she is pretty sure she laughed in response. It comes out as a rattling cough as all of the soldiers move more quickly at the sign of life to get her free.   
  
“The first time I ever held you, it was after Eden Prime,” he starts to explain, as the medics swarmed around her, “I thought I had already lost this phoenix of a woman and I would never get to hold you again.”   
  
Everything is fading into a milky gray, and the only thing she can focus on is that tiny scar on his lip. In the back of her head, she is begging and pleading for the borders of her vision to steady on his face.   
  
“It was always you,” she whispers, and from the sharp intake of air deep in his chest, she knows that he heard her.   
  
The shroud of pain finally darkens her sight, and the only sound she has left is the steady thrum of her blood pumping in her ears. But his hands are there, her pain is gone, and the only thing she feels are the steady fall of his tears against her forehead..   
  
Her pain didn’t make her human, he did.    
  
**_ IV.  On the Normandy SR-3 _ **   
  
“Major, Rila is asking for you,” EDI’s voice woke him from a heavy sleep, ringing out through his earpiece, “She asked for you and said not to wake the baby or Shepard would be very upset.”   
  
Kaidan nodded in agreement with the statement, stretching but ensuring to avoid his wife’s sleeping form or the tiny bassinet at her side before stumbling into the small cabin beside their room.    
  
He looked up at the top bunk to see their son Tarquin asleep and curled under his blankets, talons tucked tightly under his chin.    
  
His younger daughter was far less asleep, staring at him wide-eyed and awake from the bottom bunk. She raised up her blanket and he folded himself into the tiny bunk.    
  
“Rila, I thought we both agreed that you would stop having EDI wake us up,” Kaidan whispered as she cuddled next to him, “You have to sleep, we’ll be in Thessia by morning and your Aunt Liara will be waiting to bring you on your first dig.”   
  
“But Dad, I can’t sleep and I want a story,” she shook her head, “EDI told me that she didn’t know any stories appropriate for me, and thought she should ask you just in case she couldn’t judge my maturity well enough.”   
  
Kaidan reminded himself to thank EDI later for not telling her any new stories since the tiny Asari’s imagination was about 500 years ahead of her actual age. The last story had been an unfortunate translation of a traditional Asari fairy tale that had sent her into their bed for over a week.   
  
“What kind of tale do you want to hear?” he asked, hugging her close.   
  
She sighed and rested her head on his shoulder, “Tell me about when you first met Mom.”   
  
“When your mom was first placed with the Normandy, Uncle Jeff met her before and told me that I was going to fall head over heels in love with her,” he started, “so I did the brave thing and avoided her constantly.”   
  
"You avoided mom!" the little girl's eyes grew wide, her mouth forming a tiny o of shock, “Why?”   
  
He laughed quietly to avoid waking another child, "I was too nervous to meet her, especially if she was prettier than in the vids like Uncle Jeff said."   
  
"But what happened next?" she asked softly, curling up tighter in her father's arms.   
  
"I was riding down to check on something in cargo, and I heard a huge crash," he emphasized the last word with a little shake,"I could hear someone yelling, so I ran in."   
  
"Was mom okay?" Rila asked, "Was it mom?"   
  
"Your mother was flat on her back with her leg gauntlets stuck half off," he laughed, "She had tripped when getting out of her armor and was stuck between two crates."   
  
The little girl erupted into giggles, “Mom is so clumsy.”   
  
"I know, she has everyone fooled but lucky for you that you got your father's dance moves,” he couldn’t see, but could tell that his daughter was heading quickly towards maidenhood with an eye-roll at her father’s expense.   
  
“Did she see you?” Rila curled a finger in his hair, her voice growing sleepy.   
  
Kaidan nodded, “I was so nervous that I laughed, and your mother said that if I had time to laugh at her, I had time to help her up.”   
  
Rila yawned before continuing, “Was she angry?”   
  
“I thought she was, but when I looked over, she was laughing harder than I was,” he smiled fondly at the memory, “I helped her up and Joker was right, I did fall in love with her immediately.”   
  
He looked down to see the little girl already asleep on her pillow, as he snuck quietly back into his room.   
  
“Kaid,” Shepard’s voice was thick and tired as she stirred, “Is everything okay? Is the baby awake?”   
  
“Shh,” he reached down, petting her hair, “It was Rila, she’s fine, just go back to sleep.”   
  
She mumbled in agreement, rolling back over, “And I’m not clumsy.”   
  
Kaidan smiled, “I love you too.”


End file.
